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Saturday, 30 August 2014

Elizabeth isn't quite at the age where she'll start school. She'll start next September but it's something that we've talked a lot about recently as most of her friends from her pre-school, Jack and Jill's, are moving on to school now. I've had to explain to her that because they're older than her, they will go to school now and then when she's bigger, she'll go. She's really excited about it.

So when I saw a blog post over on the Mellow Mummy blog about the Debenhams back to school competition, I asked Elizabeth if she'd like to choose her own school uniform (cue 101 questions about school uniform....) and then write about it. She didn't really respond very well to me asking her why she'd chosen all the bits she picked out - like getting blood out of a stone! - but I did manage to get something from her. So here it is, Elizabeth's very own 'perfect' school uniform!

We started with the dress. It had to be a dress. She wouldn't even entertain the idea of wearing something other than a dress. Can you tell she likes dresses? Everyday I get told that she must wear a dress and she gets quite upset when I say it's too cold right now. Until I say she can wear a pink top, but I'm digressing. So we looked at dresses. She chose this really lovely red floral number because "red and pink and white are my favourite colours". I thought it was a little smart for school but at least the girl has taste.

I think this dress was a close second for her. She really likes that it's pink but she did keep choosing the red one above when they were next to each other. I thought the pink dress would win every time.

We then moved on to shoes. Well Elizabeth didn't like any of them because they're all "black and boring". I explained that all school shoes were black so maybe we should look at what else the shoes had on them or in them to decide which ones we wanted. Have you guessed it yet? Elizabeth likes these delightful shoes purely because they're pink inside.

To finish things off, I told Elizabeth that she could wear a new coat. At first she picked a rather lovely navy blue puffy coat with pink hearts all over it, which I thought was quite nice for a three year old. Then she saw this and no other coat even came close! Not only is it pink but it's covered with Peppa Pig. I thought Elizabeth was going to burst when she saw it!

So that's what Elizabeth would wear to school if she could. I asked her if she wanted a cardigan to keep warm but apparently she doesn't need one becasue "my Peppa coat will keep me warm Mummy, don't be silly!" That told me then.

Monday, 18 August 2014

Feeling empowered by my successful attempt at making a summer dress for Elizabeth, I decided to try a pair of shorts for Toby next.

I got the pattern for the Lazy Day Shorts from a lady I found on Facebook. Sarah is behind Made By Jack's Mum (MBJM) and she makes clothes and has also released her own sewing patterns. I explained to her that I was a novice at sewing but liked her shorts and she assured me that they were quite simple and I'd be able to make them. So I bought her pattern and she was right!

I had already purchased some dirt bike fabric a while ago, thinking it would be great made into something for Toby. I went and dug it out, then got to work. The pattern itself was purchased as a downloadable PDF document and it was easy to tape the pattern together - much easier than some of the other PDF patterns I've bought but haven't made yet. I cut out my fabric and followed the well written instructions with ease and very quickly progressed through all the steps. The most time consuming part for me was getting the elastic through the casing I'd made for it as I didn't quite sew straight and one part was therefore a little narrow.... It was all fine though and the elastic does sit flat - just!

They fit Toby really well. These are designed to go over reusable nappies but we use disposables as well. I was worried I'd ONLY be able to use them with the cloth nappies but they fit great either way. The pattern comes with variations and I'm going to try the trousers next. I'm actually excited! I think just a cotton fabric will look too much like PJs so I need to work out how to line them I think. I might do a bit of experimenting and/or Googling and see what I come up with.

Friday, 15 August 2014

I've actually been really poorly. Almost three weeks ago I caught a sickness bug from Elizabeth. She wasn't too badly affected, just off her food mainly and a little tired. She was only physically sick twice. I was really hit hard though. I spent the first night with my head in a bucket and the following day in bed. Frans had the day off work to be at home and look after everyone. I didn't eat or drink anything (other than a few pieces of toast and sips of water) for 5 days. On day 8 I started to feel better. 2 days later Toby got ill and he had a really bad case of diarrhoea, so a different bug this time. Unfortunately both Frans and I caught this one but again I was hit a lot harder. I'm now feeling really good and over all the bugs but I've lost a lot of weight and am still feeling a bit weak. Fingers crossed no more bugs come our way.